Severus Snape and the Goblins' Gold
by Lexwing
Summary: Major DH spoilers alternate ending!  Snape gets mixed up with goblins, vampires, and a mysterious but powerful family.


Authors note: All due respect to J.K. Rowling, but Snape's death scene in book 7 was waaay too open ended for me to leave it there. No claiming of the body? No funeral? _Really_. So here is my take on what happened next.

Ch. 1: The Undiscovered Country  
Severus Snape had always expected to die for his cause.

All that time, all those years he had been protecting Lily's son, working as a spy for the Order, plotting with Dumbledore, he had never expected to survive for very long. In fact, he was rather hoping to be put out of his misery sooner rather than later. He'd made all the preparations, all the arrangements, far ahead of time.

The manner of his death, however, did come as somewhat of a surprise. As Nagini, at the Dark Lord's command, sank her fangs into his throat, he couldn't help but feel just a bit let down that this, _this_ was to be the manner of his demise.

He would have preferred dying in battle. But no matter.

The bite itself was quite painful, but mercifully swift. As he lay on the dusty floor of the Shrieking Shack he could tell that the _sanguis memoria_ potion he'd taken was working--he was bleeding memories as well as blood. He'd been taking it faithfully every morning since Dumbledore's death, as he'd promised the old wizard he would do. 

Dumbledore had not wanted his protégé to die without a clear name, and besides, Snape hated leaving loose ends.

And to make it even more perfect it was Potter who found him, and Potter who scooped up his precious memories into a vial.

Snape had held onto the front of the boy's shirt, and stared up into those green eyes, so like Lily's, and yet never enough like hers.

And then he had died.

¶  
Tobias Snape had been a strict Catholic. He had often railed at his wizard son and witch wife about Heaven and Hell.

So Snape half expected to open his eyes and find himself in one place or the other. 

But instead he found himself nowhere. It was formless, shapeless, colorless, and as far as he could tell there were no floors, no ceilings, no up, no down.

Was this Limbo? Or, what was that other place—Purgatory?

He looked down, and saw that his body was present. The mixture of blood and memory had soaked down his collar, through his robes, all the way to his skin. But he wasn't uncomfortable. In fact, he didn't really _feel_ anything at all.

"Ah, Severus, here you are."

Snape looked up to see Professor Dumbledore, smiling at him. Snape couldn't tell what the old wizard was standing on, or from where he had come. But he looked positively cheerful.

"So this can't be Hell, if you're here," Snape observed.

"How very kind of you to think so, Severus. No, it is not." Behind his glasses Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "I wanted to tell you, my dear boy, that everything is working out perfectly."

"Potter understands now, does he?"

"I believe he does. And he is doing what is necessary."

"Well, that's something, anyway," Snape said coldly. He glanced around them again. "Pardon me for saying so, Headmaster, but is this it?"

"'It?'"

"Wherever it is I am supposed to end up. Not that I am not happy to see you, of course, Headmaster. But I thought perhaps I'd finally get to see Lily again, or at least my mother."

"Of course," Dumbledore echoed smoothly. "But that is what I've come to tell you, Severus. This is not 'it,' as you so succinctly put it. You are here only temporarily."

"I beg your pardon? How is that possible? Nagini bit me. You know what her bites do. Remember what happened to Weasley. And, besides, I took the _sanguis memoria_ potion. I doubt there's a drop of blood left in my body by now."

Dumbledore nodded. "I understand all that, Severus, and yet, I must repeat—you are not dead. And you must go back now."

Severus stared at his former employer, the man he had killed, his tormentor, his only friend.

"No."

"You must."

"I did everything asked of me, Headmaster, and more. I protected Potter. I helped him. And if as you say he has finally pieced everything together in that thick head of his then I have done my duty to you and to Lily. I want peace."

"You will have it, Severus. But not here, I'm afraid. You must go back now, there's a chap."

Severus didn't know if one was supposed to be angry in the afterlife, but he was becoming very angry indeed. Dumbledore was as cryptic and demanding in death as he had been in life.

"Headmaster…"

"We will meet again, Severus, eventually," Dumbledore told him with a smile. "So I will not say 'goodbye,' but only _'au revoir.'_"

"Dumbledore, don't…"

But it was too late.

Suddenly he was back in his body, sucking in a desperate, rattling breath.

However much his spirit might want to be dead, Severus could feel his body fighting for life. Now he could feel how much blood he had lost, feel his clothing sticking clammily to him. His vision was swimming, his lungs burned, every muscle screamed in agony, and yet he was so weak he could barely curl his fingers.

Being alive hurt a great deal more than being dead.

He was alone, still on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. Potter must have reported his death by now, but if the battle was still raging outside that might explain why no one had come for his body yet. Or perhaps Potter had intended to let him rot in the same place he had nearly died so many years before.

Feebly Severus clawed at the floor with his fingers. But of course the Elder Wand was gone, and so was his own.

The Dark Lord did not like loose ends, either.

He strained to hear any sounds from outside, to determine if the battle was over or not, but all he could hear was the weak beating of his own heart.

He wondered if, perhaps, he just lay here long enough he would die again. Would he stand before Dumbledore? And would Dumbledore send him right back again? They'd be at it all day if that were the case. The Headmaster was nothing if not stubborn.

Finally, reluctantly, Snape decided he had to try to move. Before he did so he laid his left hand against the wound in his throat. Because of Nagini's venom her wounds never clotted; it was still trickling what was left of his blood.

He moved his lips in an incantation, the same one he had used on Draco Malfoy almost a year before. It would have been a lot more powerful if he had his wand, or even if he had actually made the sounds, but Snape could still feel the trickle of blood stop.

Snape did not expect the spell to hold for long. He forced himself to roll onto his side.

Once the room stopped spinning, he began to crawl, inch by inch across the floor. Every foot or so he had to rest, laying his head down and cursing Dumbledore and whoever else he could think of for sending him back. He would then murmur the spell again, and that would buy him enough strength to slide a few more inches. He imagined he must look rather like Nagini herself at the moment, slithering his way across the floor.

Certain he would never make it down the stairs and through the tunnel back to Hogwarts, Snape decided his best chance was to use the Hogsmeade exit of the Shrieking Shack. With his grave wound and the blood loss it took him what seemed like hours, but he finally half-slid, half fell down the stairs and out into the night air.

Everything was still. Whatever had happened, it was all over.

Dumbledore had said it would all come right in the end. Snape sincerely hoped he was correct.

Grabbing the rickety fence outside the Shack for support, he continued his struggle. Wave after wave of dizzying nausea struck him, and his throat burned so badly he wondered if he would ever be able to speak again. But soon the pain became only an obstacle, something to ignore, to push through.

Severus had lived through beatings from his father, beatings from the other students, Ministry interrogations, even torture at the hands of the Dark Lord. He did not fear pain.

But, still, Snape knew that even with the incantation, there was little he could do to help himself.

He reached the road and collapsed into a damp, bloody heap.

Darkness swam up again to greet him, and mercifully he knew no more.

¶

When he next opened his eyes he saw a pair of bright blue eyes staring down at him.

Had the Headmaster relented?

"Dumbledore?" He whispered, his throat raw.

"Aye, _a_ Dumbledore, but not the one you're expecting, you murdering bastard," Aberforth Dumbledore told him with a glower. The old man was bending over him. Snape forced his eyes to focus. He could now see wooden beams over his head and sun coming in a nearby window.

"Aberforth, that isn't going to help," another voice, forceful, female, said somewhere to Snape's left. Minerva McGonagall's face appeared over Aberforth's shoulder. Her bun was lopsided, and her eyes were swollen red, but to Snape's surprise she almost smiled at him.

A plump hand tipped Snape's head up, and a goblet was pressed to his lips. Snape swallowed mechanically, and recognized the taste of blood-replenishing potion.

"Nagini," he whispered again, wishing he had the strength to speak in full sentences.

"Oh, we know all that," Slughorn told him as his fat face swam into view. "St. Mungo's still had a bit of the antidote they used to treat Arthur Weasley on hand. Sent it up day before yesterday. I've been mixing it in with the potion. You'll be right as rain in a few days."

"I was dead," Snape croaked rustily.

"Potter told us what happened," McGonagall told him. The combination of pity and pride in the old woman's eyes as she gazed at him made Snape look away. Obviously Potter had told them _everything_.

"Severus, look." Flitwick stepped forward and reached up to the bed, pulling back Snape's left sleeve.

There was nothing on his arm but bruises and bare skin.

"How many?" Snape asked.

"Fifty-four," McGonagall sniffed. "But not Potter. Potter's alive."

Flitwick looked as if he was about to burst into tears, but whether it was with joy or with sorrow Severus could not tell.

"Several members of the Order are dead, Severus, and a few of the students," McGonagall told him. "Kingsley Shacklebolt has been appointed temporary Minister of Magic."

"The students fought admirably," Slughorn said. He cleared his throat. "Not many of the Slytherins, of course, but…" He trailed off.

Snape looked from one of his former colleagues to the other, waiting.

"Aberforth found you on his way home," Minerva finally offered. "You were more dead than alive, but he brought you back here to the Hog's Head and sent for me."

"And Minerva in turn sent for Slughorn and myself," Flitwick piped. "We decided under the circumstances it wouldn't be wise to take you back to Hogwarts or to St. Mungo's. Between the four of us I must say we've contrived to patch you up pretty well."

It took a great deal of fortitude, but he finally managed to string together a sentence.

"How long have I been here?"

"Almost two weeks," Slughorn said. "But I daresay you've turned the corner."

"You're extraordinarily lucky, Severus," McGonagall said.

Snape didn't respond. It would have been too difficult to explain.


End file.
